It's been a while, but here is installment #12 of my trials and
travails with SHABBONA RR.
Bob Nicholson
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SHABBONA RR 12 Progress!
My very first layout design to appear in print was the first Lowell &
Southern. This point-to-point plan, which featured a grand total of
five (count 'em, Five) switches, appeared in the May-June, 1976, issue
of the S Gaugian. My layout plans reached their apex in complexity
with "SHABBONA RR" in the February, 1994, Model Railroader. I actually
thought I could build that thing! What's that they say about "Old too
soon"?
By the time we moved back to Ft. Madison after I retired in 2001, I
iwas beginning to realize that serious concessions were in order if I
was ever going to have a layout at all. I still had (have) those five
"boneyard fodder" brass locomotives I had built "back in the day", but
if they were ever going to roam free before the grease congealed in
their gearboxes, they had to have something to run on. "Smart too
late" was lurking at the door. Suddenly, Iowa Central was back in the
picture, with some alignment changes to meet current needs.
For instance, one significant problem with layouts is storage capacity
for all the cars and engines that accumulate over time, an affliction
no model railroader is immune to. "Off layout" storage is OK, but my
goal is to keep as much equipment on the layout as I can. Therefore, I
have decided to focus more on the Terminal District and Mooar Yard.
The most intense action on the Iowa Central took place in these areas,
anyway.
SHABBONA's Terminal District yard can only be described as "long" and
serves as opposite ends of a route that is a rough approximation of
the old ROCK ISLAND secondary "K&D" line (RIP - 1980), that once ran
between Keokuk and Des Moines, Iowa. The generic term "Terminal
District" obscures the fact that it actually serves both ends of the
railroad. The larger side is Des Moines, and the other is Keokuk. It
also has a common engine and coach yard and turntable.
The larger side,"Des Moines" is a working fiddle and staging yard,
designed for basic, efficient making up and breaking up of trains and
locomotive consists, using switch engines, instead of a pair of MU'ed
"0-5-0's" that sometimes frequent fiddle yards. It has four stub-end
storage tracks, each fourteen feet long.
The "Keokuk" side is three double ended tracks, two of which serve as
layover tracks for passenger trains at Keokuk Union Depot (KUD), and
also freight interchange from and to Mooar Yard. The third track is
the main at Keokuk, and the passenger main and coach yard lead at Des
Moines. Crossovers at the yard entrance direct movements to Mooar Yard
either via the yard main or the main line through line to Eldon.
"Mooar Yard", the second yard, is located on the third leg of a wye
from the main line on the edge of Keokuk. It theoretically lies on the
alignment of the actual BNSF (ex-CB&Q) Mooar Line, that serves Keokuk
industries on the bluffs over the Mississippi River. SHABBONA's Keokuk
freight switching is centered here, and it features a corn processing
facility. Yard engines from Mooar Yard interchange freight cars at KUD
with connecting roads TP&W, CB&Q, and Wabash in much the same manner
as did Rock Island and [now] its successor, Keokuk Junction.
On a modeling level, the KUD interchange allows individual freight
cars prototyically moving over the main line one direction to
realistically return in the opposite, eliminating modeling schemes
such as the "Coal Mine/Power Plant" routine for realisic movement of
open loaded and empty freight cars. For instance, two hopper cars with
the same number, one loaded and one empty, moving in opposite
directions in proper sequence, can give the impression of the same car
moving loaded one way and empty the other. At the end of each run,
they return to their originating yards for the next trip via the KUD
interchange.
This is all fine and good, but as a working railroader, road
operations always appealed to me besides, what's the use of making
up a train if it doesn't go somewhere. So, in addition to the yard
main between the two yards at Keokuk, a simple light-density train
order and timetable point-to-point single track winds between the two
terminals.
With only one or two intermediate stations, trains moving at scale
speeds will take sufficient time running between the two terminals
without continuous running. Any trains, individual locomotives, or
freight cars can run over the main line only once before [ostensibly]
returning in the opposite direction. How much more realistic can you get?
The best part is, inlike so many of those "pie-in-the-sky" plans of
the past, this time it is actually under construction. I can DO this!
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